Posts tagged ‘white flour’

Last night we made gnocchi for the first time. It was actually relatively easy, except that something with the recipe was a little screwy. Basically, you’re supposed to mix a little flour in with the potatoes, until it gets to a dough consistency that is slightly sticky to touch, but doesn’t doesn’t stick to you. The recipe calls for two cups. I used close to eight, and it still was too sticky. We just made sure our hands were well floured before handling it. So anyhow, I’m including the original recipe in the hopes that there was something goofy with my batch. Just be sure you have plenty of flour on hand just in case. Otherwise things went well. We made ours a little too big, but it wasn’t too bad. I would say the ideal size would be oblong balls as long as a quarter and as thick as a dime.

Gnocchi can be gut busters, and this recipe (adapted from Mario Batali and the Smitten Kitchen) makes plenty. We fed 5 people with it, and had enough left over to freeze an entire gallon Ziploc bag of them.

Prick the potatoes with a fork. Place them in a large pot of water, bring it to a boil, and cook for 45 minutes until the potatoes are soft when pierced. (It’s important to both prick the potatoes with a fork and to bring the pot of water to a boil with them already inside–rather than adding them to a pot of boiling water. If you don’t follow these two steps, the potato skins may split open causing soggy potatoes. And soggy potatoes may have been my problem). Once the potatoes are finished, remove them from the pot.

Preheat the oven to 375. Take a sharp knife, and cut the top the garlic bulb. A tiny bit of the top of each bulb should be exposed. Place the bulb in the center of a square of a aluminum foil. Sprinkle the top of the exposed cloves with salt and pepper. Drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over the bulb. Wrap the foil over the bulb, and twiste it at the top. Place the bulb on a baking sheet in the oven, and bake for 45 minutes. Remove it when it’s done and let it cool while you make the gnocchi dough.

If you have gloves specifically made for playing Hot Potato, get them now. As I understand it, you want the dough to stay warm while you’re making it, so grab a clean towel (if you don’t have Hot Potato gloves) for handling them. Peel the potatoes, and mash them in a large bowl. (Ideally, pass them through a food mill. I didn’t have one, so I grated them. You could use a food processor, too, or mash them the old fashioned way). Form a volcano hole in the middle of the potatoes, and sprinkle 2 cups of flour over the top. Add the salt and egg to the volcano. Quickly mix them all together so that the egg mixes before it gets cooked by the potatoes. Knead for an additional 4-5 min until the mixture is dough, and slightly sticky to the touch. (This is where my attempt bordered on disastrous. It was super sticky even after an additional 6 cups of flour. Better luck to you).

Take the garlic bulb, and squeeze it from the base towards the top. The roasted cloves should pop out. Take a fork and mash these into a smooth paste. In a large skillet, melt the butter (or add the oil) and heat. Sprinkle the flour a bit at a time, whisking it into the hot oil until it dissolves. Mix in the garlic paste at this time, too. Add the milk a bit at a time, whisking vigorously to make a roux. Add wine/broth until you have a thick sauce, then bring the mixture to a simmer. Sprinkle the cheese on top and mix it into the roux. Add nutmeg, salt & pepper. Reduce heat to low, and stir sparingly. Add more liquid if it’s starts getting to thick. Remove any thick stems from the spinach and roughly chop. Add a tiny bit of water to a pot and heat. Wilt the spinach, drain it and squeeze as much liquid from it as you can. Set it aside to be added at the end.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Take a fist-sized chunk of dough and roll it out kindergarten-style into a snake about the thickness of a dime. Cut the snake into one-inch bits. Roll them briefly in your hands to round any pointy edges, then roll them long-ways along the tines of a fork to create ridges. (Traditionally gnocchi has ridges; we skipped this step). Place them on an oiled baking sheet and rub them around or spray them with oil to prevent sticking. Break off another piece of dough and repeat.

Add the gnocchi to the boiling water and stir once to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. Cook about 2 minutes until it floats up to the surface. With a slotted spoon, scoop up the cooked gnocchi and plop them into the sauce. (Alternately, transfer them to an oiled baking sheet and put them in the freezer. Once they’ve frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag. This prevents them from freezing into a large gnocchish lump). Add the spinach to the sauce, and mix them all together.

Wifey and I decided to hold a cooking extravaganza this weekend. On Saturday we cooked and froze enough food to feed us for more than two weeks. Since she’s in grad school and I work full time plus freelance, these frozen meals should be a lifesaver for us. All total, we made 2 lasagnas, 4 calzone pizza doughs, 4 batches of homemade tomato soup, 3 pizza doughs, and homemade pasta noodles. (We also ate a calzone).

In order to accomplish this, I made a quadruple batch of whole wheat pizza dough. I want to share the recipe because we were sorely disappointed by the first 5 recipes we tried. They were all tasted like crumbly cardboard, were hard to difficult to work with, and generally resembled partially set-up cement more than pizza dough. Then we tried this recipe. It decimates the competition. I’d even argue that it can hold its own against white dough.

Dissolve the sugar and the yeast in the warm water. In a large bowl, mix the whole wheat and white flour and the salt. Once the yeast is activated and starts foaming, mix it into the dry ingredients. Knead 10-15 min. Transfer to a large, greased bowl, cover with a clean, dry towel, and set in a warm, dark place to rise. After doubled in size (usually 45 min. – 1 hr.), punch down and cut the dough in half with a sharp knife. (If I’m planning on freezing the dough. I just pop them in a Tupperware at this point and toss it in the freezer). Reform the halves into balls, place on a floured surface, cover and let rise once more. Once doubled in size again, roll the dough out on a well-floured surface and start making your pizza.

It’s been dumping snow in buckets all day, keeping us mostly cooped up in the house. To relieve our boredom, wifey and I have been cooking up a storm. Last night we made homemade pasta. My parents gave us a Marcato Atlas pasta machine for our wedding. Pasta-making can be a time consuming process. However, it’s well worth the wait. The taste of fresh pasta is incomparable to the dried, cardboard-flavored, box pasta you get at the grocery store. It also makes for a wonderful at-home group activity. It takes a couple hours, and there’s always something to do, but it’s never rushed.

This was my first experiment with whole wheat pasta. The results surpassed even my highest expectations. I’ve made spinach- and tomato-flavored pasta before with marginal success. With the whole wheat, I was worried that something might go awry with the glutens. However, while making the dough, things seemed to go rather easily. (The only difference was that the dough seemed a little dry. I wet my hands and kneaded the dough until the water absorbed. I wasn’t expecting this because white flour seems more absorbant than whole wheat in my experience).

I thought I had gotten off too easily, so when it came time to roll out the pasta, I was nervous. However, the pasta rolled out and cut perfectly fine! In fact, it was probably the easiest batch of pasta I’ve ever made. I haven’t excluded the possibility of beginners luck, but I’ll say this… I doubt we’ll ever make white pasta again. It went so well, that I saved half the dough in the freezer. I have no idea if you can freeze pasta dough and use it later, so I’ll report back sometime later as to how that worked.

A pasta machine is well worth the investment, in my opinion. We’ve already gotten great use out of ours, and it provides a level of precision and accuracy that would be virtually impossible to achieve with rolling and cutting by hand.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix in the egg and olive oil, and knead until smooth. (You can do this by hand. It’s extremely messy and way more fun! See an example here). Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for an hour. After an hour, unwrap and run through the past machine in fist-sized segments. It can sometimes be tricky to get the right moisture level in the dough. Too dry and it will crumble on you. Too wet and it won’t cut properly. If you need more detailed instructions on how to do it right, ask me and I can recommend a book or two. Or better yet, come over for dinner and we’ll to it together sometime. After you’ve cut the pasta, drape it over chair backs to let it dry. (If you have cats or dogs, keep a close watch on them during this process!) To cook the pasta, bring a large pot a water to a boil. Fresh pasta cooks much quicker than box pasta. Linguine cooks in about 4 minutes. Angel hair virtually needs only be placed in the water before it’s ready.

Rainbow Chard & Sweet Onions:Thinly slice the onions. In a large skillet (important: one with a lid), melt the butter. Place the onions in the skillet and mix until coated in butter. Cover tightly and cook on the lowest setting for an hour. (Do this while the pasta dough is resting). Cooking the onion slowly allows the sugars in it to thoroughly break down. We used Vidalia onions, grown only around Vidalia, GA. Vidalia onions are known for being sweet; they have more sugar than an orange. After the onions have sweated for an hour, remove the lid and add the wine. Replace the lid, but leave it slightly tilted. After another 20-30 min., the onions should be brown and well-caramelized. Add the chard and cook another 10-15 minutes until tender.

Toss the onions and chard in with the pasta, crumble the feta over the top, and enjoy!